Your Excellency, I feel compelled to write you as you get set to join other world leaders in New York for the United Nations General Assembly meetings. At the meetings, one of the issues that will crop up is climate change.

My last letter to you, if my memory has not failed me, was in May 2018. It has been over four years and some months since then, and my concerns are yet to be addressed. These concerns have serious impacts on climate change.

Pardon my lack of manners for not asking after Yusuf and his siblings, and Auty Aisha.

I am writing you because of Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, that was so beautiful they called it Garden City. Now, the pollution of Rivers’ environment by black soot has robbed off on its beauty.

Regularly, the air is fouled by a dense smell. I understand this smell rudely greets residents as they step out of their homes. The smell is choking. It has been traced to a cocktail of diesel, kerosene and other hydrocarbon products. Those who have spoken or written about it say it is bad for respiration because the respiratory system is burdened by an elaborate and complex search for clean air in a fouled environment.

Often sir, cars and other valuables left outside are invaded by black particles. These particles make these valuables their homes when they become too heavy for the wind to bear.

Sir, it is believed that this soot comes from the activities of the hydrocarbon industries and the many illegal refineries in the creeks. This is a challenge that must be confronted headlong.

I need to say this sir, the soot is never comfortable staying outdoors. Any small opening is enough for it to invade bedrooms,  living rooms and offices. You know like I do, that in our country where adequate supply of electricity is a major challenge, there is no way windows can remain permanently shut. Even in homes and offices where they can afford to power air conditioning systems through electricity generating sets, these particles force their way through the vents of the air conditioner and any other available opening.

With this situation, people easily go down with nasal infections and respiratory problems.

Sir, it has always not been this way. The first major case was reported a year and some months ago. Residents of Port Harcourt noticed black particles on exposed items, such as floors, cars, food items, clothes hung outside and so on. This soot, scientists have established, have harmful effects once they penetrate the lungs.

While I will not bother you with scientific jargons, I will point out the fact that the World Health Organisation’s guidelines on this soot show that residents of Port Harcourt are being killed softly.

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I am sure you will wonder why I am writing you on a local matter; the reason is that the matter is beyond the Rivers State government. This is because the matter has been linked largely to the way the military indiscriminately pollute the air in trying to curb illegal oil refining. They simply just set fire on crude oil and release the fumes into the environment and eventually they settle on anything possible on their return journey. The people are the worst for it.

As you know sir, Governor Nyesom Wike cannot order the military to stop this practice. He can only advise. They take orders from you as the commander-in-chief.

This is the time for a decisive action to end this menace. Let it not be said that the Federal Government turned a deaf ear to the people’s cries.

The Federal Government-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has a 55 per cent stake in the Joint Venture deals with the oil giants must also be involved in ensuring the partners do not pollute the air. The oil facilities must be protected to block the source of raw materials for the illegal refiners. This is where  the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) comes in. Sir, so far, I think the DPR has failed to prevent the bad boys from stealing crude to refine or is there collusion?

Sir, another agency under your grip, which has not been able to help the people in their hour of need is NOSDRA.

Your Excellency, it will be unpatriotic of me to end this letter without pointing your attention to a belief in Rivers. Many residents believe that the increase in the activities of illegal refiners is not unconnected with the support they enjoy from security agents. Please look into this sir. The concern of many is that the state’s land and waterways are heavily policed by security agents. So, how do the bad boys seem to have their ways?

Sir, I need not remind you of Rivers’ importance in the creation of the wealth our country depends on. Please force all these agencies to end the soot killing the people slowly.

In many creeks, the people never see night. The multinationals operating in these areas have their flow stations so close to homes and send out gas flares throughout the day. So, the only way to differentiate between night and day is to check their wrist watches.

Sir, away from Rivers, let me also bring to your attention the fact that in many places in the Niger Delta, oil pipelines are not underground, they are in the open, and often they burst or are burst, and soils and existence are damaged in the process.

The people have shouted, protested and threatened violence over their fate, yet change has refused to come. It is as if the multinational also has another licence: to send them all to their early graves so that their leaders can have all the wealth for themselves, including the little they manage to spend on basic amenities. This environmental genocide, as some have called it, is having serious effects on the people. Strange diseases are killing the people. Pregnant women are developing strange allergies. Yet, health centres are ill-equipped to take care of their health needs. They have several people with aggravated asthma; there are increases in respiratory symptoms, such as coughing and difficult or painful breathing, chronic bronchitis and decreased lung function. Premature death is not uncommon.

The truth is, the oil majors are more interested in the oil than in the people’s well-being. They can die for all they care. Oil is more important than man; that seems to be their mantra.

Agriculture, which has the potential to help our country, has no breathing space in the Niger Delta. The soils are polluted and where they are not, the people are not properly motivated. Everybody is just waiting for handout.

Significantly, Brass, Forcados, Ogulagha and Bonny are a few of the Niger Delta settlements where Nigeria draws financial strength, yet they are only accessible by road. It took an offer by the Nigeria LNG Limited for the Bonny-Bodo road to be on the front-burner.

Don’t let me take more of your time, Sir. Please say me well to Auty Aisha and the kids. And safe trip to the city so great they call it twice: New York , New York.

All the best, Sir.

Tunde Kelani, ace cinematographer and movie director, collaborated with Professor Akinwunmi Isola (now late) to make socially-relevant films. With Isola gone, Kelani has worked with others to make phenomenal movies.

Two of the ones he did with Isola are ‘Saworoide’ and its sequel ‘Agogo Eewo’.

The first part is about a town called Jogbo, which has so much in common with Nigeria to the extent that one will not be wrong to see it as the country Frederick Lugard coupled together.

In Jogbo of the past, the king was required to enter a pact to be faithful to the community. Breaking this pact was met with death upon the activation of the ritual of ade ide and saworoide. Latter kings, however, resisted the pact and corruption took over the land.

The second part is about political reforms and the extent political actors will go to resist them, including consulting babalawos and pastors. Another deeply political work by Kelani, which was not written by Isola, is ‘Arugba’. The movie is built around the Osun Osogbo festival, which was in the news recently over the Osun government’s warning against drinking water from the Osun River because of contamination. The river is believed to have healing power because it hosts the Osun goddess. If the last scene of the movie involving Adetutu, who is the arugba, and her boyfriend is all you see, you will be tempted to see the movie as a love story, and if your knowledge about the festival is all you rely on, you are bound to see it as a movie on the Osun deity, but ‘Arugba’ is more than those. It is a very political work, which remains relevant to this day.

This work is like allegorical works of art such as ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘Glory’. Without being versed in the background to the works, you will read them like ordinary stories and a great deal will be lost in the process.

Throughout the movie, you will never hear the names of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, the late Bola Ige, the late Sunday Afolabi, All Progressives Congress (APC) flag bearer Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the late MKO Abiola and other figures who have been involved in the post-1999 political era. But, for any viewer who understands the country, it becomes clearly evident that Kelani hid behind the Osun Osogbo festival to deliver a political drama about our troubled nation.

In the movie, there is a Kabiyesi, the traditional ruler of a town, who likes calling everyone else thief when his hands are not entirely clean. This Oba has a chief called Onikoyi, this chief is always at a loggerhead with him and there are clear allusions in the movie that depict the area controlled by this chief as Lagos, the Lagos presided over by Tinubu between 1999 and 2007. Obasanjo and Tinubu had so many disagreements, the major one being over the creation of local governments. Obasanjo seized the funds for the councils. Tinubu stood his grounds and found ways to keep the local governments afloat. A number of these disagreements can be gleaned from the movie, including the governor’s open defiance of the President.

There is also Aare Alasa, who is the king’s friend despite their personal disagreements. When he decides to leave the government, another chief berates him for his action despite being invited to “come and eat”. This is a clear allusion to Chief Sunday Afolabi who berated Ige for an action perceived to be against Obasanjo despite the fact that Obasanjo invited him, an opposition party member, to “come and eat” in a Peoples Democratic Party government. Ige had then replied that he was in government to serve and not to “eat”. Afolabi was Minister of Internal Affairs.

A former Osun State Governor and Ige’s protégé, Chief Bisi Akande, said his mentor intended to resign from the government before he was killed on December 23, 2001.

Akande, in his book, ‘My Participations’, recalled that the late Ige confided in him his plan to leave as the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice.

There is a scene where the Kabiyesi is challenged by one of his oloris for not investigating the cause of the death of his brother, Adewale. He responds by saying if one person’s own does not spoil, another will not benefit. When a gathering being addressed by the brother is shown, he is wearing the popular MKO Abiola cap and he stutters like the winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election and throws proverbs here and there. Abiola and Obasanjo have Abeokuta as their town. This perhaps was why they were called brothers in the movie. Many believe that the “owners” of Nigeria chose Obasanjo as the beneficiary of the sacrifice that Abiola’s death is considered by many.

If you still doubt the heavy political leaning of this culturally-relevant movie, there is also a scene where someone faults the Kabiyesi for declaring hastily that one of his chiefs was killed by armed robbers when no investigation had been carried out. Obasanjo did this when Ige was murdered in his bedroom while serving in the PDP government.

Aside the allusions to known political figures and events, the work also dwells on challenges Nigeria has found difficult to surmount. We see corruption, abuse of power and favoritism. We see how cash donated by the World Health Organisation is mismanaged. We see the Kabiyesi trying to manipulate the process of choosing the arugba, and we see instances of corrupt men labeling others corrupt, as is common in Nigeria. We also see the love of women, especially for men of power.

So, when next you see ‘Arugba’ and some other works by Kelani, such as ‘Saworoide’ and ‘Agogo Ewo’, look out for the political messages in them. The messages are relevant for a time like this when we are set to choose our next set of leaders.

My final take: Our next President should enter a pact with Nigerians with a modern version of ‘saworoide’ and ade ide. Other leaders should be bound to us via the ‘agogo eewo’. If the President reneges on the pact, ‘ade ide’ should be placed on his head and sawooride played to make him pay for breaking the pact. For other leaders, ‘agogo eewo’ should be applied to make them pay if they go against us.

It has been quiet of recent from her end. But not totally quiet. There are many like her too spewing nonsense in God’s name. Many have nicknamed her Mummy G.O. Her name is Evangelist Funmilayo Adebayo.

In her world, it is a sin to be a football star, a comedian, a break-dancer, a pair of jeans wearer and a COVID-19 vaccine receiver. These strange beliefs of her are spread through her videos, which are everywhere on social media. Aside from these ridiculous claims, she also says anyone who cut his hair low to the extent that his scalp shows has successfully bought a free ticket to hell. Perfume and necklaces wearers are also hellfire-bound, according to this interesting character.

Her reason for committing the break-dancer to hell is that its originator, the late Michael Jackson, got power from the land of the dead.

She claims Nollywood actress, Tonto Dikeh, is not a human being by birth, and that whoever listens to the music of Tiwa Savage will not make heaven. And if you are a beneficiary of the American Visa Lottery, there is no rapture for you when Jesus returns.

“I can say Roll-On is good but do you know Sure! Sure! Very simple but highly demonic. There is a perfume called Iris, if you use that perfume, I’m telling you, the spirit of fornication will come upon you. There is another perfume called Happiness, very cheap with fine odour, many people know it. My dear, if you have started using it, something different will be happening to you, and you will never please God that time,” she adds to her list of doubtful claims.

A mobile handset is a tool for communication but this wonderful madam says: “All of you children telling your parents to buy handset for you on your birthday, you’re asking for the ticket to hellfire.” Haba!

Mummy G.O. does not have the exclusivity of spewing nonsense in the name of our Father in heaven. Like our mother in the Lord, there is another clown, also a woman, who claims that anyone who has dreadlocks will automatically go to hell. Her interpreter interpreted dreadlock as ‘irun were’ (an insane person’s hair). She claims that in the spiritual realm the hair represents snakes. This same clown also claims that not paying bride price will lead the defaulter to hell. She even used a model, a woman, to show that when bride price is unpaid, it hinders the wife’s progress in life.

There is also the popular Indaboski Pahose, the Southeast-based Prophet Odumeje, who relishes showing us funny theatrics, including getting the devil to visit his church and his technical team interviewing the devil, who boasted that he was the first pastor standing up to him. This man’s theatrically violent performance is only one example of bizarre practices that have crept into Christianity. I have a feeling he will make a good actor if only he will try out his talent in Nollywood.

Aside from men and women who spew out all manners of nonsense in the name of our Father, there are those who also commit all manners of atrocities in His name. One of such is Michael Oluronbi, who is now in jail in the UK. Oluronbi saw nothing wrong in having sex with his church members. Painfully, some of them were kids so it will not be out of place to describe him as a cradle snatcher.

Oluronbi is the definition of evil. The self-proclaimed pastor, who is a trained pharmacist, was convicted by the Birmingham Crown Court, United Kingdom, for sexually assaulting six girls and a boy. Some of the girls, who are now adults, are siblings.

He raped one of them in her mother’s bedroom and her room downstairs where the church’s altar was when mother was working at night. One of them had five or six abortions in the space of five years.

To add salt to injury, Oluronbi’s wife, Juliana, aided his evil ways. She was also found guilty and is awaiting sentencing any moment from now. Some of the victims said Mrs. Oluronbi took them for abortions on two or three occasions.

Oluronbi’s evil started in the 80s in Cherubim and Seraphim Church of God (Ayo ni o), Edgbaston parish, United Kingdom. The church was on Gillott Road in Edgbaston, Birmingham in the 1980s and belonged to Juliana’s parents.

In 1989, Oluronbi broke away with about 40 members to set up his own Cherubim and Seraphim Church of God. A single mother of six offered him the sitting room of her family home in Winson Green, Birmingham, for service.

Some of Oluronbi’s victims are the children of single mothers. His first move was to sow a seed of discord between the woman and the father of her children. Oluronbi said he saw visions that her kids’ father was a bad person and ensured he was banished from the house.

“I did not want him as a husband. I wanted him for his prayer, his guidance. He was a pastor of the church and I wanted him for the security of my children,” the woman told the police. But Oluronbi wanted more and he got it. After succeeding with that, he started a sexual dalliance with her but the evil in him made him reach for her daughters, and he was able to convince each of them not to reveal their affair to the other.

Aside those who have psychiatric issues, I seriously believe that some fraudsters are also on the pulpits and are using 419 tricks to get people to buy into their nonsense and, in the long run, they cash out and live big because of the gullible.

Religion is the opium of the masses. In it, we find solution to everything we do not understand and it is not about to change. What should, however, change is the avalanche of ‘were alaso’ (sick but well-dressed folks) on the pulpits. Their place is in psychiatric wards and not on the altars. These clowns are just lucky that our Father is merciful and does not strike like the god of thunder.

Trusting God is not akin to suspending one’s brain, and serving God is not synonymous with being gullible. Certainly, having faith has absolutely nothing to do with being stupid. Every man of God is first a man. Like the rest of us, they make mistakes. It is wrong for anyone to sublet his or her life to them. We must always use our brains.

My final take: Our society is a place where people who should be receiving serious psychiatric attention are roaming the streets free and not a few of them have found themselves on the pulpits. The unfortunate part of this scenario is that they have an audience who not only believe them, but also put into practice the nonsense they spew regularly.

The heart toys with human beings. The worst it does is when it decides to suddenly stop functioning, when blood refuses to flow into it. When this happens, the hearts of the ones close to the one whose heart has stopped are broken, tears are shed, teeth gnashed and things fall apart.

But, some people have devised means to beat the heart to its games. Inventors, writers, musicians and other creators are on top of this list.

Years before Biyi Bandele’s heart (all of a sudden) ceased functioning, he began the journey of not dying, of being alive forever, of being forever remembered and studied. He wrote a book, then another, and then another. He wrote scripts, plays, and directed movies and took great street photographs. He touched lives. And so death will be shamed in the end. It has only taken the body, one of the things that make up life. Every other thing remain because Biyi wrote himself into eternity.

His journey into greatness began when he won a huge contest in his early years in the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University. He went to London to receive his prize and stayed back to complete his university education, and went on to direct great plays, including an adaptation of Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’.

Biyi’s love for historical work shines in ‘Burma Boy’ and it will light up in the forthcoming ‘Yoruba Boy Running’.

‘Burma Boy’ benefitted from Biyi’s family history. His grandfather served in the British force in the World War, a war Africans had nothing to do with but were coerced into and maimed, killed and wasted in hundreds, if not thousands.

Another novel he wrote, which I picked up and read after he joined the ancestors, is titled ‘The Sympathetic Undertaker and Other Dreams’. It is a novel narrated by a nameless man who has a brother named Rayo.

When the narrator is told about his brother’s condition, he bursts into laughter. Their mother knocks on his door with the announcement that Rayo had gone insane.

She tells him: “Mama Titi and our neighbours in the backyard have just returned from the market. They saw him there. He was stark naked. Right in the middle of the market.”

The narrator had got home late the previous night. He’d been out on the town until well past two o’clock, and had come back with a friend. He’d had no sleep until she left. Half an hour later, their mother comes bearing the news.

“Have you gone there to see him for yourself?” asks their mother as his head clears and he begins to register the shock.

What really shocks him isn’t the fact that Rayo had finally gone over the edge, but that he had gone to the market to do so.

Their mother replies that she had not seen him, “That’s why I have come to wake you up. Or, don’t you think we should go together?”

Rayo is a rebellious soul, one who considers it his responsibility to rid the world of evil people, including corrupt leaders. In secondary school, he tricks a senior student who is fond of extortion. Senior Toshiba is offered a drugged wine, which he describes as ‘another token of appreciation of your lordship’s protection’.

Toshiba drinks it declaring: “It’s a source of great joy to one to be told that one’s hard, self-denying work is appreciated by at least one or two reasonable people.” He adds: “I must say, my dear man, that this gesture of abiding loyalty and great devotion shall not go unrewarded.”

After tasting the wine, he declares: “Uumh Great wine. Real vintage ’55 Burkina-Faso, I must say. Last time I tasted wine of this quality was when my father went to receive his seventy-seventh chieftaincy title in Tangalawaja. Or was it when he was made Grand Patron of the Koma? Anyway, this wine is of rare pedigree. And I say that in all earnestness.”

He oversleeps after that and Rayo and his gang use a cart to drag him to a cemetery and leave him there naked. By the time he returns to the hostel, he is looking like a mad man and would have been taken to an asylum had Rayo not confessed. Bullying stops in the school after that and Rayo escapes expulsion.

He fights other battles after that. But then he loses his head. He has always been crazy. When he is going to be circumcised, he tells the doctor: “Doctor, I was wondering, this business about being put under anaesthesia while the surgery was being done… I was wondering – what if I wanted to watch it, what if I didn’t want to be fast asleep while it’s being done…’

“Don’t listen to him, Dr Dakwa,” says Mother, pulling Rayo’s ear. “He doesn’t mean it.”

Rayo insists: “On the contrary, sir, don’t listen to Mother. I do mean it.”

Rayo gets his wish but Bandele’s friends and family do not get to see him live beyond his 50s and well into his 90s.

They would have wished that Biyi would have lived to see his adaptation of Wole Soyinka’s ‘Death and the King’s Horseman’ premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and on Netflix.

They would also have wished his novel, ‘Yoruba Boy Running’, his fictional account of the life of Samuel Ajayi Crowder, will not be published posthumously, that he would be here to answer questions about the process and procedures of getting such a work of art done.

I remember ace journalist Tunde Fagbenle writing eloquently about what a great asset Biyi was when their paths crossed. Fagbenle was publishing a magazine then and Biyi was a reporter in his employ.

My final take: Biyi’s life tells a tale, a tale about giving one’s best in everything. He was a great writer. He was a great director. He was a great photographer. He was a great playwright. He was a great screenwriter. He was, in the main, an all-round great man.

Does President Muhammadu Buhari, the leader of Africa’s most populous nation, have an idea why a Prime Ministerial hopeful in a clime saner than ours once said he was going to concentrate on three things if elected? The three things are: education, education and education. Does our president know that the assertion underscores the importance of education? Is the importance of this not lost on the current leadership of Nigeria, the giant of Africa whose public universities have been closed for about six months because lecturers are on strike over the failure of government to fulfill an agreement entered into with them? Did the President ever envisage that what started like a warning strike has been on since February 14, and when it appears an end is in sight, the goal post is shifted?

Does President Buhari know the implications of closing the universities for this long? Does he feel ashamed that his administration has been unable to end this strike, whose effects on our education sector will take years to get over? Does he know that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), which ordered the strike, has good enough reasons to be angry? Does he know that the welfare of its members are treated with levity? Does he know that an agreement reached with the Federal Government since 2009 remains unimplemented? Does it occur to him that with the strike, coming at a time the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the academic calender for about one year, this is a blow too many for students?

Does the President know that now a four-year course will take six years to complete? Does he care that many now regret choosing public universities because their counterparts in foreign universities and private universities are enjoying uninterrupted calendars?

Does the President know that the mental health of our students who are home when they are supposed to be in school cannot but be affected? Does the President know that for students who stay off campus, their parents have to cough out more than necessary for rent? Does the President know that when long strikes are called off, students are rushed and proper learning is jettisoned? Does the President know that the worst effect of long closure of universities is the loss of respect for products from our higher institutions? Does the President know that closures like this are behind unemployable graduates?

Does the President know that under his administration lecturers have gone on strike many a time? Does he know that ASUU strike lasted nine months in 2020? Does he remember that ASUU was on strike for three months in 2018 over the poor funding of education and planned increment of school fees? Will someone remind the president that, in 2017, ASUU was on strike for 36 days? Can someone tell the president the Memorandum of Understanding which ended that strike remains unimplemented? Does the President know that his order for an end to the strike within two weeks has yielded no result? Does he know that Nigerians now laugh when he gives directives?

Does he know that government officials, including those running the country’s education sector, have their children schooling abroad? Does he know that this is why they are less concerned? Does he know that Education Minister Adamu Adamu once walked out on the President of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Mr. Sunday Asefon, in February 2022, because he was told the bitter truth?

Will someone tell the president that the matter has gone beyond issuing orders? Will he be told that he needs to lead the negotiations to end the strike? Does he remember that he is the one we voted for, and we hold him responsible for the mess in the education sector? Will someone tell the president that the Federal Government he leads has been uncoordinated in its handling of the negotiations?

Will Nigerians join the campaign to get the president to revitalise public universities because the future of our nation lies in well-funded public universities and that anything short of that is disaster? Will someone remind him that though the mess didn’t start with him, but that is not an excuse for the worsening situation? Someone needs to remind him that government is a continuum and blaming the past should not be allowed.

Shall we ask the president if he is aware of the way universities are run abroad? Shall we also tell the president that there is no sense in establishing more federal universities when we are unable to fund existing ones? Shall we tell the president that things have fallen apart in our education sector and that now is the time to get the centre to hold at all costs?

To add salt to injury, I hear we are going to accommodate students displaced from Ukrainian universities as a result of the Russian aggression. Can the half-blind lead the sighted successfully? Can the one with no hand raise a bucket full of water? In which universities are we going to accommodate the students from Ukraine? Certainly not the ones that are closed. Maybe we will put them in the private varsities? Is there a joker bigger than us?

My final take: Will someone remind President Buhari that he promised us change? Will someone tell him that, unfortunately, the education sector is still waiting for this less than a year to the end of his eight-year administration? Will someone tell Mr. President to act now. Yes, now!

 

He’d really never had cause to kill himself to get power. Never been caught strategising for things many sweat to get. He hadn’t stressed himself too much because the accident of history always locates him and writes him into the books of tomorrow. He is a soldier, and an author of a couple of books, including ‘This Animal Called Man’. His name is Olusegun Aremu Okikiola Obasanjo.

He is one of the luckiest human beings on earth. Born of a very humbling background, his decision to join the Army changed his story. Opportunities just usually find a way to perch at his doors. If in doubt of my assertion, consider his role in the civil war, his ascension to the seat of Head of State, and his return to power after years in prison where the late General Sani Abacha dumped him. Even when it is not his will, he has gotten power without breaking much sweat.

Each time I listen to this erudite former President talk about leadership, I am always marveled. He comes across as an activist, a fire-spitting one for that matter. Femi Falana and others seem like his colleagues. But, I have repeatedly told myself: Wait a minute, this man is no activist. He is part of what he is complaining about.

From Nigeria to Europe to America and Asia, anytime he is given the opportunity to talk, he talks as though he is not an African leader who has contributed immensely to the challenges of the continent; he talks like a Messiah who is waiting for the opportunity to change the world; and he talks like an analyst with the best of intentions. But he is not. We all know he is not. Except we want to deceive ourselves.

Some days back, I saw a video of his in a church and he was complaining about the leadership the country has had. He spoke about security challenges and his fears that churches might soon become dangerous to attend because kidnappers could just walk in and abduct congregants. He sounded convincing like an average activist.

The truth is: He is not far from the truth but my problem is that he talks as though he is not part of the problem.

He ruled us for some years as military Head of State after General Murtala Mohammed was killed, and he came back as civilian president in 1999. After his first term in 2003, he secured a second term and led us till 2007 before foisting ailing Umaru Musa Yar’Adua on us.

As President, Obasanjo carried out a privatisation programme. The idea was for government-owned businesses to be sold to the private sector so that they would be well-run. We are all witnesses to how bad that turned out. He also invested chunk of money on the power sector and, till today, we are in need of light to determine where the funds went.

Under his watch, the education sector didn’t witness any major turnaround. Under his watch, the health sector didn’t get the lift it deserved. Under his watch, housing was not improved significantly. Under his watch, respect for the rule of law was near zero. Ask All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Candidate Bola Tinubu about how he seized the funds meant for local governments in Lagos and ignored the law. Under his watch, the National Assembly was unstable because he kept getting the leaders impeached because of his disagreement with them.

Under his watch, fewer roads got the attention they deserved. Under his watch, we crawled when we were supposed to be running a marathon.

This same activist, in the twilight of his administration, tried to elongate his tenure. He can deny it from now till tomorrow but we are no fools. Those who played one role or the other in it have spoken. This great activist also harassed rich individuals and state governors into donating billions for the construction of the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library. The library is complete with a standard hotel and other money-spinning facilities, including a cinema. As I write, it is also his home haven left the sprawling mansion he retired to after his tenure.

At the height of their quarrel, former Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Fayose asked him to return Ekiti’s donation to the library. For me, there is no justification for him as a sitting president to raise money the way he did for a private project. For want of a better word, it is gross abuse of office. Yet, he speaks against this when others do it. He is unable to remove the speck in his eyes but he is seeing the one in others. What a wonderful man!

The race to pick a successor for outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari has reawakened the activist in Obasanjo and he has been pontificating. The other day he said one of the mistakes he made was choosing Atiku Abubakar as his deputy. He said this not long after Atiku became the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the party that made Obasanjo president, but whose membership card he obscenely displayed its public destruction.

My final take: Obasanjo cannot divorce himself from the leadership problem Nigeria has. As a matter of fact, he is an integral part of it. So, he should spare us the pontificating about our leadership deficiency. He is part and parcel of why we don’t have electricity, good roads, good schools, standard hospitals and many other good things of life.

I must add that this intervention does not imply that Obasanjo is a failure or has nothing to show for his years in office. It is just to say he is not a saint and he should stop dressing as one.

It was initially billed for the cinemas but for reasons I do not know, ‘Badamasi, portrait of a general’, by Obi Emelonye, surfaced instead on Amazon Prime. Thanks to my 12-dollar-a-month membership fee, I saw it without breaking a sweat.

If Emelonye had had his way, the biopic would have been at the cinema on the 28th anniversary of the celebrated presidential poll won by the late MKO Abiola, which IBB shamelessly aborted.

The biopic traces his beginning, his military training, and his ascension to power. Nollywood actor Enyinna Nwige glitters as Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, Nigeria’s only military ruler who chose to address himself as President.

It is a well-made film and is largely fair. There are scenes I will remember for a long time. In one, IBB was in the bathroom under the shower. His wife, Mariam, went under the shower, clothed, and held him in a comforting way from the back. It was shortly after he annulled Abiola’s mandate. Mariam, who at a point encouraged him to stay on and not give up on his legacy, became tired too and said: “Eight years is enough. Let’s go home”.

Then, those scenes with General Sani Abacha, which portrayed him in ruthless light, will stay with me for some time. A tired IBB at some point had to shout on the man he called Khalifa (successor): “Can’t you see what is happening? We have messed up?” But an adamant Abacha replied: “Whatever happens, the election remains canceled”.

The film refreshed memories of the military era. Many coups in the country’s history had this orphan from Niger State playing one major role or the other. IBB was there when Murtala Mohammed overthrew Yakubu Jack Gowon; he backed Muhammadu Buhari to terminate the democratic administration of the late Shehu Shagari; he is also credited with foiling the Dimka coup which killed Murtala Mohammed, and he was not missing in action when Buhari was shown the exit for him to take the crown. The biopic depicted all these, including how he trickishly got Dimka after Murtala was killed.

It all depicted how, when he came into power, it was like a messiah had come from unexpected quarters. He behaved as if a friend of the common man was finally manning the purse and fairness would dictate the disbursement of its goodies. He started talking about the rule of law, he was talking about ending poverty, he was talking about human rights, and he was talking about a government with a human face— an obvious criticism of the government he overthrew, which had zero respect for human rights, rule of law and many others.

We saw a glimpse of how IBB followed up his talks by setting up committees to work out the implementations of his ideas. He attracted some of the best brains from the academia, the Bar, and everywhere else. Many were excited about the turn of events and natural critics of government pleaded for the man to be given a chance. It took time for it to become clear that a political Diego Maradona was in the saddle, and he would dribble Nigeria into a tight corner, which, years after, it would be trying to get itself out of.

One of the populist moves IBB took was to get his Attorney-General, the respected Egba Prince, Bola Ajibola, to assemble a National Committee on Corruption and Other Economic Crimes. It was chaired by the late Justice Kayode Eso. Its task was defined by its name. One of the suggestions the committee made, as Eso recalled in his book, ‘The Mystery Gunman’, was the enactment of rules against living beyond one’s means. It also sought the establishment of the Independent Commission Against Corruption, which I suspect was the root of the one Olusegun Obasanjo later set up. IBB showered Eso and his committee with encomium when he received their report. He described its recommendations as the real panacea to the ills of the nation and promised to act on them, but the only action he took was to dump the report. If he had not done that, many in his government and his friends would have had their times in jail.

Several other populist moves, including the one which gave the impression he was going to be in power for a short period, went the way of the Eso committee. The Maradona was just playing games. Another game in which he was at his best was to gift us political parties, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Republic Convention (NRC) as though ideology could be decreed. He kept disqualifying candidates until the late Bashorun Abiola decided to be a presidential candidate and went on to win convincingly across the country, even with a Moslem-Moslem ticket. Of course, the Maradona annulled the election and, when the heat was too much for him to deal with, he introduced another lexicon by announcing he was stepping aside. And he completed his assault on our sensibility by installing a civilian, Chief Ernest Shonekan.

The film ended at the point where IBB departed for Minna after stepping aside. But it is important to point out here what happened after then. Whether by omission or commission, the decree IBB rushed in to justify Shonekan’s leadership of the country did the opposite because it had no provision to enable anyone to appoint an Interim National Government, and a Lagos judge declared the government illegal. The late Gen. Sani Abacha, who was like IBB’s right-hand man, ‘slapped’ Shonekan out of the Villa. Evil followed evil after that. It was all IBB’s making.

The country practically went up in flames. There were protests, there were bombings and innocent people were clamped into jail. Amid the discontent in the land, Abacha sponsored groups to campaign for him to become a civilian president. They went by all kinds of names, including the infamous Youth Earnestly Ask for Abacha (YEAA) led by Daniel Kanu, who mesmerised with his acquired American accent. To cow the nation, prominent figures were clamped into detention; and a few were lucky to escape abroad. Madam Kudirat Abiola and Pa Alfred Rewane were gunned down. Bagauda Kaltho, who was a correspondent with The News, was bombed. It was a terrible era in the annals of the country, all thanks to IBB’s error of judgment. The heavens eventually intervened and the man who wanted to be a life president became history in circumstances we are yet to fully unravel.

In the run-up to the 2003 elections, and later in the run-up to the 2007 polls, there were signs IBB considered stepping back into power under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), but Obasanjo, the man he helped midwife his ascension from prison to power, and others, checkmated him and, with time, he gave up the dream. The Maradona finally settled down for full retirement in his sprawling Minna Hilltop mansion. There he receives visitors regularly and appears in the media occasionally.

My final take: Obi Emelonye’s ‘Badamasi’ qualifies as a well-made biopic, but I have a problem with the depiction of how Abiola won the June 12 election. The film showed people voting for Abiola and receiving money in full public glare as they cast their ballots. While not saying money was not spent, it certainly was not that brazen. All in all, it is a fair portrayal of the life of an orphan who joined the military and became our leader and has remained a factor in our polity.